


Never to be Told

by Aubergion



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Antivan Crows, Book: The World of Thedas, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aubergion/pseuds/Aubergion
Summary: Zevran loves. He loses. He learns how to get up again. Seven snippets, before, during, and after the Blight.





	1. One for Sorrow

Getting from Salle to Denerim in a hurry is difficult. The caravel Zevran picks is miniscule, and the captain has to be charmed into taking a passenger on board. Its hold is cramped, damp, and dark, filled nearly to bursting with barrels of wine and crates of porcelains. But Zevran had grown up in a Crow rookery, twenty slave and beggar children all packed in narrow bunks lining a single unwashed room. When the wind blew from the west, it stank of dog shit. When it blew from the east, it reeked of rotting fish. When there was no wind, the children marinated in their own stench, and those were the worst days of all. A slightly mildewed hold is nothing in comparison. So he makes himself comfortable on a sack of hardtack instead and stares into the distance as the ship pulls out of the harbor.

Taliesen must be waking up by now, back in the market-district room they’d found for their last job. It will take him perhaps an hour to notice something is off, and another half-hour to find the note pinned to the rickety table by a mug, so the ship will be long out of sight by the time he reaches the docks. He was never a morning person, and these ships leave so very early - particularly when they are well-paid to do so. It was more than Zevran could afford, truth be told. He had little enough to his name as things were, and the Crows were taking the entire contract down to the last maravedí. A glory bid, some would call it. The only payment the assassin could claim was the status of having made the kill. And a pair of Grey Wardens were a very unique mark. So it was not such a bad trade, as these things went. Besides, he would not need much in the way of coin where he was going. There are not many brothels at the Maker’s side, he imagines, and more’s the pity.

Perhaps he should have listened to Taliesen and stayed in Antiva. Or taken him up on his offer of aid. The Wardens are fearsome. Even a child knows their reputation. Fearless champions, slayers of darkspawn, warriors without peer. It would not make much of a difference for them to fight one Crow or two. Yet even now, he cannot bring himself to wish Taliesen dead, not truly.

Taliesen had been the one to cover for his apathy, signing Zevran’s name next to his own on every mission as if he had done anything more than keep watch. Taliesen had brought him food from the markets when he couldn’t find the will to leave whatever dismal inn their latest mission had brought them to and kissed him like it could drive away all the shadows on their hearts. Yet every time Taliesen had touched him, all he could remember was Rinna’s blood on his hands, her lifeless staring eyes, her body disappearing into the canal with barely a sound. Zevran had kissed back anyways. Taliesen had needed to forget as much as he thought Zev did.

Sometimes, when it’s quiet, he still thinks he can hear Rinna calling his name in the distance. Laughing, teasing, begging, pleading. Zevran knows it’s all just his head playing tricks on him. He looks every time. Like the idiot he is.

What would Rinna say if she could see him like this? He can almost see her, perched on one of the sailor’s empty hammocks. No, hanging from it with her head down, far too close to falling and breaking hundreds of andris in valuable merchandise along with her neck, strong legs twined in the cloth to keep her balance, her dark curls nearly brushing the floor. She’d never slip. In his mind’s eye, her grin is dazzling. _You’re such a mess, Zev. Did you fall off a bridge again, Zev? Get up, Zev._

Zevran gets up.

There isn’t a lot to do in three and a half days on a small boat, even with his best efforts. He stakes out his corner near the galley, amongst the dry beans and bread. He sharpens his rapier. Then his daggers, all five of them. Twice. He paces the length of the hold. He eats, a little. He sleeps, rather more than he should. There is no Rinna or Taliesen here to wake him, and he can’t see the point of it in any case. He combs the tangles out of his hair, and braids it into something slightly more presentable.

On the second day, a mouse bites Zevran on the finger while he’s dozing. Out of retaliation and boredom, he hunts down three more, staking out a mouse hole with a bit of bread on a string, a dagger poised to strike, and more energy than he’s felt in months. The ship has a cat, it turns out, a tabby mongrel who presents him the uneaten half of a fourth mouse and bats around the corpses of his kills.

The ship docks at Estwatch to resupply. He doesn’t get off.

On the third day, Rinna’s voice dogs him until he finally climbs up the ladder to the deck. The noonday sun is blindingly bright, and warmer than he expected. The salty wind is bracing. He can almost see a hint of land to the south. Ferelden. Land of barbarians, and, apparently, of renegade Grey Wardens in need of killing.

What is he _doing_? A wave of nausea hits. Zevran almost wants to throw up on the splintery deck, and makes his way over to the side of the boat in anticipation. The ocean is bright blue and sparkling. It looks almost tempting. But no. Maybe when they were still in Salle, but it is a little late to jump off the side and start swimming back now. He grips the railing and wills his hands to stop shaking.

All he needs to do is find the Wardens. Even just one of them would be his match. But how? The contract hadn’t been any more specific to their location than “Ferelden”. Tracking down just two people in the entire blasted country? He needs a plan. He should have been planning this entire time, not sleeping the last days of his life away. Wardens are not mice, to be baited out of hiding with crumbs and twine. But of course he doesn’t have one. That was always Rinna’s part. He was just the pretty face, a charming voice, sneaking in through the paths she set and playing on the vulnerabilities she saw. He doesn’t know how to do this.

_Still smarter than both you men put together, even rotting ten feet deep in a canal._

Zevran sees her sinking under the waves. For a single terrible moment, he imagines what it would be like to follow.

No. He pulls away from the side like he’s been burned and makes his way back down to the hold. He has a job to do. One last mission so he can die with honor. Find the Wardens, and all of this will be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point, I've got to take the plunge and post things. Thanks to Ganymeme and BecauseDawn for their beta help and support!


	2. Two for Mirth

“Why does Zev get to have all the fun jobs?” Taliesen mutters. His footman’s disguise is deliberately cheap and far too tight around the waist for comfort. His arms ache from holding up perfect frosted trays of fine Treviso wines for hours. His face aches from smiling. But here in an alcove of the shadowed servant’s gallery, he can take a moment to relax.

Rinna swiftly clears his tray of champagne flutes and starts covering it with colorful drinks and marigolds. Except for a couple flowers in her hair and embroidery on her shoulders, her clothes are simple. With gloves over her tattooed hands, she could pass for any one of dozens of elven servants at the estate. And her disguise actually fits. “Because he’s prettier than you,” she replies matter-of-factly. “And complains less.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“That’s because I’m right. How’s our friend?”

“Distracted, but she hasn’t had anything. Not even water. Lupana’s too paranoid for that. Are you sure this is -”

Rinna silences him with a delicate finger to his lips. “Perfect,” she says. She pulls a bright pink maga flower from her braid and sticks it on the tray. A signal to Zevran. Apparently he knows how to not die from whatever horrible thing he spent last week mixing up - he better, since Rinna’s pouring an awful lot of poison in those drinks.

“One day,” Taliesen says wistfully, “I’ll be a grandmaster, and we’ll be invited to these parties, instead of having to sneak around in the shadows while Zev gets to stuff his face with sweets."

Rinna shakes the last drop of poison into a drink and tucks the flask away. “One day,” she replies, “They’ll be throwing parties in our name.” Her steel-grey eyes are shining, and she’s grinning like a cat that’s caught a canary. Last time she’d looked like that on a mission she’d pushed him out of a third-story window and into a haystack. Taliesen is about to ask, but Rinna shoves the tray of drinks into his hands before he can start. “Now stop daydreaming and get out there.”

Taliesen balances the tray with one hand. With the other, he snags Rinna’s hand and lifts it to his lips for a kiss. “Your wish is my command, _signorina_.”

Rinna smiles. Even in the darkness he can tell she’s blushing. The moment holds - and then a door creaks at the other end of the hall. Rinna springs away. “Stick to the plan!” she hisses, and then she’s gone.

Another footman emerges from the far door with a tray of raw oysters. Taliesen’s not sure when nobles started eating oysters. It sounds like the sort of thing he’d get at the docks at night when he didn’t have enough coin left for real fish. The cooks have sprinkled these ones with parsley and gold leaf. He’s seen lesser obscenities at an orgy. “Taking a break?” the footman teases.

Taliesen smirks. “Resting my eyes.” He picks up his tray and cracks the door to the ballroom open. “After you?”

Compared to the dull servant’s gallery, the ballroom is blinding. Light from a dozen chandeliers reflects off gleaming marble pillars. The windows are each as tall as a man, and all are flung open tonight. Faint street chatter and cold winter air mix with the minstrels’ songs. Hundreds of masked people swirl through the ballroom, or lounge in small groups around divans and padded ottomans. On the dancefloor, an elf in a gown and an egret mask dips her partner. Two men are kissing behind a potted fern that doesn’t hide them nearly as much as they think it does. There’s a few dwarves in the crowd too, and even a pair of imposing qunari clad in nothing but paint and a few striking rope arrangements that he’s dying to figure out.

Flames, he loves Satinalia.

But he can’t stand around gawking. He has work to do. Taliesen weaves through the crowd with his tainted drinks, stopping here and there to offer them to select targets. A pretty dancer who’s lost her top and is slurring her words, a pair of thoroughly soused elves who’ve stumbled in from another party, a small group playing drinking games that really should have stopped last round. If they look like they should not be still drinking, then approach them, Zev had said. Cold of him, really. But an effective way to sell the disguise. He blends in. No one questions a footman with drinks. A few people do fall for the bait. He watches one of the elves slug back an entire poisoned cocktail and do nothing worse than burp, so the effects don’t seem to be instant.

Zevran is perched on a divan away from the windows, like he has been for the last hour. Taliesen still doesn’t know how they managed to get him into those pants without having to sew them on. The codpiece alone is probably illegal in several southern cities. His black and gold half-mask curves down across the left side of his face and forehead - just enough to hide all of his tattoo. His hands flit around animatedly as he talks, showing off the shiny rings on his fingers. The gems on his doublet are only paste, but on him, they might as well be true Antivan diamonds. He glitters under the candlelight.

His companion is a human woman, in a stark ivory mask and a silk headdress so long it trails on the floor. The venerable Condesa Elena Lupana of Seleny. Sister-in-law to the late Queen Delfina, which made her an aunt of sorts to King Natale. She’s not in line for the throne, but like every other noble within spitting distance, she’s taken a side in the inevitable power struggle over the succession. Prince Azrin’s, in her case. He’s pretty enough, Taliesen supposes. He’s got half of House Ferragni working for him, which is a considerable advantage. But most importantly, he listens to the condesa. Her experience is a bigger threat to his enemies than any number of Crow cells. She’s smart, suspicious, and a survivor. Up until tonight, hopefully.

Taliesen circles around and approaches from Zevran’s side. Lupana doesn’t like people sneaking up on her - she’d caused a scene a couple hours ago when she’d stabbed another footman for it. And as far as Taliesen knew, that one wasn’t even an assassin. Though it was even odds as to whether he was an eunuch, now. 

“-And she says - she says - I’d rather have a bastard than a barrister!” Zevran finishes. He bursts into uproarious laughter at his own joke. Lupana - well, he can’t tell if she’s smiling, under that mask, but she’s raised a single withered hand to her lips.

Taliesen turns a snort into a polite clearing of his throat. “May I interest you fine gentlefolk in a drink?”

“I am not drinking,” Lupana replies. He can hear the icy disapproval dripping off her voice.

Zevran looks in the wrong direction first, then up at Taliesen. “My darling condesa, surely you must try at least one? This is Satinalia! Drinking ‘s tradition!” He grabs two, nearly tipping the tray over. Taliesen pulls back abruptly to avoid getting doused in poison. Zev’s certainly been living up to tradition. Taliesen can smell the alcohol on his breath. Wine flutes and tiny canapé plates are scattered on the table in front of him. More than a couple. The color is high in his cheeks. If they’d been at a nice normal party, or out in the streets, Taliesen would have told him to stop drinking. Hopefully, he’s sober enough to do his part.

Lupana shakes her head. “I cannot,” she insists. Her voice is thick, choked with sorrow. “Not with Natale’s fool brother plotting to steal the throne. Just coming to Antiva City, I was nearly murdered in my carriage twice over by his Crows. This slaughter needs to end.“

Zev smacks the divan. “This is a- an outrage! It is a shame, for such a beautiful woman to be so miserable. This is a holiday! Here. I will be your tester for the night.” As Taliesen watches, aghast, Zev takes a sip from one of the cocktails. He doesn’t die. He licks his lips and pauses a moment. “Ah, violets, I believe. And, it appears I am not dead. I even have all my fingers! Marvelous.” He wiggles his fingers to demonstrate. He takes another sip, and proffers the drink.

Taliesen is frozen. To the void with this contract. He wants to rip the glass from Zev’s hands and dash it to the floor. He wants to run all the way back to home and raid their apartment for the antidote he knows Zev must have somewhere. He doesn’t move a muscle. He’s not sure if he remembers how to even blink. 

Lupana - she _laughs_ , and pushes her mask up, revealing wrinkled olive skin and strands of thin gray hair turning white. Her makeup is a little smeared. She doesn’t look like a terrifying matriarch, the deciding factor in the succession. She looks like a grandmother. Which, he supposes, she is. She takes the glass. “Perhaps just one.”

“No more fear!” Zevran cheers. “Tonight, we forget our worries. Tonight, we celebrate!” He picks up the other, equally poisoned, cocktail, and clinks it against the condesa’s glass, rather sloppily. As one, they drink. Taliesen tries to remember how to walk. Zev looks up at Taliesen. “Still here? Tch. Go! And leave th’ tray.” He slaps Taliesen on the ass.

Taliesen leaves the tray and bolts.

The Chantry bells toll one. Rinna misses the rendezvous. She always misses the rendezvous though, so that’s still normal. Probably got bored and went home, even though Taliesen keeps telling her it’s against protocol. Can’t blame her though. It’s cold out here. Zevran misses the rendezvous, but the party’s still going. He can see the estate lit up like a beacon. That was a perfectly reasonable… reason. Can’t make an early exit. And anyway, Zev can take care of himself. Taliesen buys skewers of spicy grilled squid, and eats one while he waits for Rinna and Zev. Then he eats Rinna’s too, because she’s late and he hadn’t been able to get any real food at that stupid party anyways. She’d understand. He hadn’t remembered to talk to the qunari, either. A disappointment all around. He’s sitting on a pier and halfway through Zev’s squid when the man finally makes his appearance. He’s still in his party clothes, though the doublet’s half-unbuttoned now. His hair is a wreck. He has a bottle in one hand. Taliesen nearly stabs himself in the eyeball with the skewer as he gets to his feet and seizes Zevran in a hug. “Zev! Zev, Mother of Mercy, where have you been? Are you alright?” He pulls back to look Zev over. “Where’s the antidote?”

Zev laughs, swaying on his feet. “I’ve got your antidote right here.” He waves the bottle. 

“Zev, this isn’t funny!” Taliesen hisses. “You drank the same poison Lupana did. You know that.” He starts patting down Zev’s pockets. Only, of course, he doesn’t have any pockets. Not fashionable. “Come on, don’t make me start undressing you in the middle of the street.”

“Hot.” Zev hooks his arm around Taliesen’s and takes a swig from the bottle.

“Zev, please! This is not the time!”

“Drunkard’s Mercy.”

“What?”

”Very old poison. Not so popular now. Too unreli- unre - not safe.” Zevran buries his nose in the crook of Taliesen’s neck. ”Just like liquor. Looks the same, tastes the same. Only the liquor is the cure also. So it can only hide in its antidote. Very very risky. Sometimes marks don’t die. Sometimes Crows do not get paid.”

Taliesen takes a moment to let this sink in. “But Lupana wasn’t drinking.”

“No.”

“Maker.” The laughter starts bubbling up involuntarily in Taliesen’s throat. He sinks to his knees, dragging Zev down with him, until they’re tangled together on the cobblestones, Zev in Taliesen’s lap and Taliesen’s face buried in his hair. “Shit. I thought you were going to _die_ , Zev.” 

Zevran grins broadly and turns to kiss Taliesen on the nose. “And now you see. All according to plan!”

What can he possibly say to that? Taliesen sighs. “I need a drink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Ganymeme and BecauseDawn for all their support and beta help!


End file.
